Democratic Palestine : 2 (ص 27)
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- Democratic Palestine : 2 (ص 27)
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campaigns against Angola and Mozam-
bique.
The disengagement offered by Preto-
ria, at the same time its planes were still
murderously bombing Angolan towns,
was the signal for a US diplomatic rescue
mission. By the time Pretoria’s ceasefire
went into effect at the end of January,
Chester Crocker, US Undersecretary of
State for African Affairs, had begun his
shuttle diplomacy to all involved African
parties. Crocker’s mission is like the ser-
vice which US envoy Philip Habib prof-
ferred to ‘Israel’ during the 1982 battle of
Beirut. He is assigned to cover South Af-
rican failure to comply with the UN Se-
curity Council resolutions demanding
immediate, unconditional withdrawal
from Angola, not to mention the UN plan
for Namibia’s independence. Instead US
diplomacy aims to extract the results it
wants from South Africa’s aggression,
just as the Reagan plan was launched in
the wake of PLO withdrawal from Bei-
rut.
In the interests of warding off Pretori-
a’s sabotage, neither Angola nor SWAPO
rejected the idea of a ceasefire at the
Angolan border. However, Angola has
made it clear that Namibia’s independ-
ence is not conditional on the withdrawal
of Cuban troops from Angola. SWAPO
dismissed the US initiatives as “a diplo-
matic ploy intended to hoodwink the
‘people of Namibia” and vowed to con-
tinue its people’s war until terminating
the occupation fully. Due to imperialism
and Pretoria’s determination to maintain
their exploitation of African people and
resources, the undeclared war in south-
ern Africa will surely be a protracted
one. However, we remind that ‘Israel’,
the US and reactionary forces have yet to
achieve their aims in Lebanon, despite
massive aggression. The enemy tactics,
and then its strategy, will ultimately fail
in southern Africa, and the people of
South Africa and Namibia will join their
Angolan and Mozambican brothers in
freedom.
‘Israel’ and Africa
South African troops - the Israeli army’s counterpart
“_..beyond the Arab countries... we must expand the field of
Israel's strategic and security concerns in the eighties to in-
clude countries like Turkey, Iran, Pakistan, and areas like the
Persian Gulf and Africa, and in particular the countries of
North and Central Africa.”
— Israeli Defense Minister Sharon, 1981 (as printed in
“Davar’, December 18, 1981, and translated in “Journal of
Palestine Studies”, No. 43, Spring 1982, p. 167)
Though Sharon never delivered the lecture wherein these
words figured, Zionist penetration of Africa is a reality, driven
along by the Israeli state’s own ambitions and its strategic
alliance with US imperialism. Zaire’s restoration of diplomatic
relations in May 1982, marked official Israeli reentry into the
center of the continent. This was the first fruit of the Camp
David accords on the African level. Among the aims of the
pact between the US, ‘Israel’ and the Egyptian regime was to
provide for Israeli economic and military expansion into the
Middle East and Africa. Sadat offered Egypt as the bridge,
‘concretely by normalizing relations with the Zionist state, and
politically by reneging on the platform whereby almost all
Black African states had broken relations with ‘Israel’ in 1973.
‘The southern flank of the continent did not need to be men-
tioned by Sharon; ‘Israel’ had long ago established a foothold
there, through close military and economic cooperation with
the apartheid regime in South Africa.
After the 1979 Egyptian-Israeli accord had confirmed
Egyptian recognition of the Zionist state and brought the Sinai
pullout within sight, David Kimche, Director General of the
Israeli Foreign Ministry, made a number of trips to Africa to
pave the way for reestablishing diplomatic ties. In November
1981, Sharon secretly visited Gabon, Zaire, Ivory Coast, Cen-
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